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^N ^DEQTJ^TE IMlIlSriSTRY, 



SERMON 



DELIVEKED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN BOSTON, 



MAY 25, 1869. 



BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 131 CONGRESS STREET. 

18 6 9. 



A.N A.DE3QTJ-A.TB: IVtlNISTR Y, 



SERMON 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY, 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN BOSTON, 



. MAY 25, 1869. 



BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 131 CONGRESS STREET. 
186 9. 



^ 



^3 



n> 



SERMON. 



Acts xvi. 1-3.— Then came he to Derbe and Lystra : and behold, a certain disciple was 
there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed, 
but hie father was a Greek : which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra 
and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him. 

1 Tim. ii. 2.— And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the 
same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 

The first of these passages gives us the fact that the Apostle 
Paul, having become acquainted with a young man of piety and 
promise, took him under his care and into his company, as an 
assistant in evangehcal labors, and, if we may so express it, as a 
theological student. It seems prqbable that the acquaintance com- 
menced at the Apostle's first visit in those parts, and that Timothy 
became a " disciple " as soon as the story of Jesus the Christ, was 
made known to him. We know that, afterwards, the intimacy and 
affection between those two persons became like the intimacy and 
affection between a father and his son. In the two Epistles from 
Paul to Timothy, which were written long afterward — one of them 
apparently the last production of the Apostle's pen — allusion is 
made to several of the particulars here mentioned. The young 
man's Jewish mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois, are 
spoken of as persons of eminent faith ; and though his father was 
a Greek — probably a Pagan, and though, as following his father's 
nationality, he had not been circumcised, and had probably received 
a Greek education in respect to intellectual culture, the influence 
of his mother over him was such that from a child he had 
known the Holy Scriptures, and had thus been taught to fear and 
worship the true God. At Paul's second visit to Lycaonia, this 
young man " was well reported of by the brethren that were at 
Lystra and Iconium," who had seen his deportment as a Christian, 
and knew his qualifications for usefulness. Allusions in each of 



the two Epistles show that great expectations had been formed in 
regard to him ; and that he was set apart to the duties of an evan- 
gelist — as Paul himself had been set apart at Antioch to similar 
duties — by a solemn form dedicating him to God's service, and 
committing him to God's blessing. In one of those allusions, 
[1 Tim. iv. 14,] the Apostle tells him, *' Neglect not the gift that is 
in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of 
the hands of the presbytery." In another, he says, "This charge 
I commit to thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which 
went before on thee, that thou by them, [encouraged and stimu- 
lated by them,] mayest war a good warfare." As the Holy Spirit, 
moving on the minds of the prophets and teachers who, in the 
church at Antioch, ministered to the Lord and fasted, had said, 
" Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have 
called them ; " so the same Holy Spirit, moving on the minds of 
the brethren at Lystra, had said, with sufficient distinctness to sat- 
isfy the judgment of Paul, ^' Separate me Timothy for the work 
whereunto I have called him." In this way it was that the young 
man was invited and introduced to the ministry of the Gospel. 

The second of the two passages which have been read as the 
basis of this discourse, shows us that Paul, when the time of his 
departure was at hand, deemed it necessary to enjoin on Timothy 
the duty of bringing forward others, and introducing them to the 
same ministry, in essentially the same way. " The things which 
thou hast heard of me among many witnesses," — those facts and 
doctrines in which I have been your teacher, and which are not a 
secret system in the custody of a priesthood, but are the common 
property of all believers, so that a host of witnesses can testify 
what the things are which were committed to you — " the same 
commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others 
also." The duty thus enjoined on Timothy, rested not on him 
alone in his day, but on all to whom the same ministry had been 
committed, and on all Christians, according to their various oppor- 
tunities of cooperating for that object. As the brethren at Lystra 
and Iconium, many years before, had commended Timothy as a 
fit person for the ministry, and had taken pains, not without some 
sacrifice, to introduce him to the work, so it was the duty of the 
brethren, in every church, to find out and bring forward all who 
were divinely called to preach the Gospel. The same duty has 



rested on the ministry and the churches of each successive age, 
and is now resting upon us. To us in our several stations, and 
according to our several faculties and opportunities, it belongs in 
common with others, and in concert with others, to use all neces- 
sary measures for perpetuating in the churches, and for extending 
through the world, a fit and faithful ministry of the Gospel. In 
the interest of future ages, we are to see to it that the same things 
which the Apostles committed to those whom they introduced into 
the ministry of the Gospel, shall now and continually be committed 
to a competent number of true and trustworthy men, who in their 
turn shall be able to teach others also. 

We can hardly fail to observe that the Apostle's words imply a 
distinction between faithfulness and ability. It is not enough 
that the men to whom this ministry is committed, be '* faithful 
men;" they must be " able to teach others also." They must first 
he faithful, or, more properly, worthy of confidence^ and then 
they must be able or competent to the work of teaching, and 
therefore of defending the faith once delivered to the saints, so 
that others after them, through generations yet unborn, may keep 
up that only apostolical succession. 

Without attempting any extended illustration of the thought 
represented by that phrase, "faithful men," I may say that of 
course no man is worthy to be trusted with the ministry of the 
Gospel unless, in humble and penitent faith, he has received that 
Gospel into his own soul. How can any man be intrusted with 
the Gospel if he gives no evidence of having experienced its 
saving power ? Nay, such evidence on that point as might suffice 
for his admission to communion in the church, is not sufficient for 
his admission to participate in the ministry of the Gospel. The 
only true idea of the man worthy to be thus intrusted, is the idea 
of one who can be readily recognized as a man of God, a man of 
prayer, a man diligent in the self-discipline of the Christian life, a 
man growing in grace and in that knowledge of Christ which 
comes from the experience of his power to save. Such are the 
" faithful men," the men whose moral and spiritual qualities make 
them fit to be trusted with this ministry. 

Yet something more than this is necessary to a man in order 
that he may be fitly placed in the true succession from the Apostles. 
He must have, also, certain qualifications of a more intellectual 



sort, by which he may be " able to teach others." It is not a 
ruling and mediating priesthood, but a teaching ministry, which 
makes the apostolical succession. He who is to teach others, must 
be *' apt to teach." What is that aptitude or fitness ? 

First. In his capacity as a teacher — whether his work be that 
of a bishop or pastor, or that of an evangelist or minister at large 
— he must be able to command some measure of confidence and 
respect. Otherwise, who will listen to his teaching ? Who will 
be attentive to receive what he would communicate 1 Men may 
attend occasionally, or temporarily, on the exhibitions of one whose 
intellectual qualifications they do not respect or confide in — they 
may attend to be amused, or they may attend under the force of 
habit or of conscience, or they may attend because the public reli- 
gious assembly is a good thing in society — but they will not attend 
upon such an one to be taught by him. How important, then, is it 
that the ministers of the Gospel in any community be men whom 
that community shall be compelled to respect as men of competent 
intelligence for the work of public instruction ! 

Secondly. The man whom we can recognize as "able to teach 
others," must not only have, in general, a character for intelligence 
sufficient to command respect ; but, particularly in regard to the 
things which he is to teach, he must have knowledge superior to 
the knowledge of those who are expected to profit by his teaching. 
A man may be quite competent to teach the simplest principles of 
religion to a class of children, who is not at all competent to be 
the stated teacher and guide of a Christian congregation. 

Thirdly. The man must have such faculties of discourse and 
utterance as will enable him to communicate the needful truth, 
clearly, convincingly, and forcibly, to all the people, of whatever 
class or condition, with whom he has to do. He must have not 
only voice to reach the ear, but a power of arrangement and illus- 
tration, and a command of words and images, by which he may 
transfer his own thoughts, distinctly and vividly conceived, into 
the minds of those whom he attempts to teach. 

Now how are such qualifications to be obtained ? No man is 
furnished with these qualifications by birth, by inspiration, or by 
accident. The Apostles, indeed, were prepared and equipped for 
their work miraculously, as well as by the three-years' personal 
teaching of their Master. But in these days, the men who are to 



be intrusted with the Gospel as being not only "faithful," but 
** able to teach others also," must be men in whom the requisite 
*' ability " has been formed by education, developing and cultiva- 
ting those natural talents which grace has sanctified. 

The duty, then, which was incumbent on Timothy, is, in the 
nature of the case, incumbent on us. It is incumbent not on min- 
isters only but on all Christian men, according to their means and 
opportunities, to take care that a competent number of men, suita- 
bly endowed by nature and sanctified by grace, are educated for the 
work of the ministry in the churches, and for the propagation of 
the Gospel through the world. 

In all that I have now said, brethren and friends, I am sure 
that your Christian judgment is with me. Let me ask for your 
kind attention to some considerations bearing on our particular 
duty — yours and mine — as American Christians, in this year 1869, 
to provide a well educated ministry both for the generation that 
will soon have crowded us out of our places, and for generations 
not yet born. 

I. I ask you to consider what demand there is for an increased 
number of such ministers — especially in connection with the 
growth and the distinctive work of the American Congregational 
churches. The question here is not whether the actual demand to- 
day for ministers to become pastors in vacant churches can be met 
to-day, — but it is whether the existing arrangements and the spirit 
now prevalent in our churches are such as to warrant anything like 
a reasonable expectation that in the year 1880, (when the boy now 
twelve years old will be old enough to be a preacher,) or in the 
year 1900, (which many of those who now hear me hope to see,) 
the young men who will then be wanted and called for to go and 
teach not this nation only but all nations, preaching the Gospel to 
every creature, will have been fitly educated for that work. 

If we would know what demand God is making upon us in this 
respect, we must forecast the future. The ministers wanted to-day, 
cannot be had to-day, if they have not been educated beforehand. 
The ministers who were wanted at the day of Pentecost, were 
forthcoming only because they had already been learning three 
years in Christ's own theological seminary. No safe conclusion, 
as to the demand for young men of the right sort to be put in 



8 

training for the work, can be deduced from the number of super- 
annuated or otherwise disabled ministers — nor from the number of 
those who find employment as teachers, or in connection with the 
religious press, or in the service of beneficent institutions — nor 
from the number of those whom some necessity, obvious perhaps 
in each particular instance, has turned aside to other occupations. 
Far more pertinent is it to ask what becomes of the young men 
educated for the ministry as they go forth in their successive classes 
year by year ? Are there more of them than are actually called 
for and employed as fast as they are ready to begin ? Ask the 
Executive Committee of the Home Missionary Society whether 
the young men whom we are educating for the ministry are numer- 
ous enough, and whether they would be able to employ and to 
sustain more missionaries if they could find them. They will tell 
you that, as they survey the wide field of American home mis- 
sions, the want which oppresses them is the want of men to preach 
the Gospel — men whom they may send westward beyond the Mis- 
sissippi, beyond the Missouri, into the great central territories 
which are so soon to be imperial States — men whom they may send 
beyond the grand sierras that divide the waters of the continent, and 
into the golden States of the Pacific. Their call is for men to fill the 
vast wilderness with the cry, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" — 
men to organize Christian institutions and influences all along the 
line of the railway which, within the last few days, has begun to 
bear along its track to this emporium, from our remotest west, the 
teas and spices and all the richest fabrics of what was once to us 
the remotest east — men whose work for Christ, in such a field and 
at such a crisis, shall tell on all the future of the human race. 
Some men we have sent forth, and are sending year by year — true 
men, worthy to be numbered with " the heroes of faith " — men 
whose work is dotting the vast area with luminous points ; but oh 
how few are they ! And where are the many who ought to go, 
and whom we would send if we could find them ? Where are we 
to look for the men who ought to be sent into that field ten years 
hence, and twenty years hence ? 

With this question, turn your thoughts in another direction. 
Think of the free and reconstructed South, and of what must be 
done there in Christian zeal and love. Ask the directing minds of 
the American Missionary Association, now laboring for the eman- 



9 

cipated blacks, what the result is which they hope to realize, and 
by what sort of agency they expect that result to be obtained. 
They will tell you that their schools for the freedmen are not the 
end but the beginning, and are to be regarded as subsidiary and 
introductory to a higher work. The work of civilizing those chil- 
dren of barbarism, and of raising them to the level of a self-gov- 
erning freedom, will never be complete, so long as their religious 
guides are illiterate and untrained men. Not till they and their 
neighbors of the race that once oppressed them shall have been 
brought alike under the civilizing as well as the emancipating 
power of organized Christianity — -not till the Gospel shall be min- 
istered there, to all alike, by " faithful men who shall be able to 
teach others also " — -will the new social order which has been 
made possible by God's destroying judgments, be made actual and 
complete. Already the field is beginning to whiten for the harvest. 
Already peace has been established there under reconstructed 
governments; and those who were slowest of heart to believe, 
are beginning to understand that the new era of liberty will be an 
era of new prosperity. Reviving industry will bring relief, and 
something like oblivion of old hates and conflicts. The regions 
which war has devastated are already smiling in the tranquillity 
of better days — the cities swept by conflagration are rising from 
their ashes in renovated beauty — broad acres once trodden into 
barrenness by the feet of slaves are regaining their fertility — the 
homes of thrifty freemen will soon take the place of slave-huts, and 
will be clustered into villages around the school-house and the 
Christian temple — and the traveler on railways and rivers bearing 
the freight of a growing commerce, shall see the church spire here 
and there, contrasting its whiteness with the dark evergreen of the 
live-oak, or pointing with silent finger to the sky from amid the 
magnolias or the palm trees. In the new world which is there 
rising out of conflict and chaos, what work is there for men who 
shall go thither in the spirit of Christ and with his Gospel — men 
competently taught and trained for the ministry of that Gospel by 
which he who sits upon the throne is making all things new. 
What adequate provision are we making for the supply of that 
demand ? The demand is already urgent ; and soon it will be ten- 
fold greater than now. 

Take a still broader view. Our churches are doing something 



10 

in the field of foreign missions ; but here too, as in the home field, 
the great want is the want of men. The conductors of the work 
are confident that if the churches will only produce men of the 
right sort, completely trained for the work of carrying the Gospel 
to all nations, and of translating the Scriptures and the rudiments 
of a Christian literature into all languages, they will surely give 
the means also. Think, then, how much must be done, in the re- 
maining years of this nineteenth century, for the diffusion of the 
Gospel through the world. I am old enough to remember all the 
great changes since Fulton's first steamboat slowly ascended the 
Hudson, and you know that 

— " Old experience doth attain 
To something like prophetic strain " : — 

let me then, as an old man, tell you that the thirty-one years which 
remain before the beginning of the twentieth century, are to be 
grander in their record than all the years that we old men have 
seen. Think what changes are impending. What is it that we 
see to-day ? China throws every avenue wide open for the Gospel 
to enter ; and, placing an American citizen at the head of her 
embassy, she asks admission into the great commonwealth of 
Christian nations. The Sultan at Constantinople acknowledges 
before his subjects that Mohammedan civilization is a failure, tells 
them of their inferiority among the nations, and urges them to 
learn what Christendom can teach them. European ideas, follow- 
ing in the track of British conquest, and propagated not only by 
missionary zeal but by all the agencies of commerce and of gov- 
ernment, are revolutionizing India. The vast interior of Africa, 
teeming with human life, has at last been penetrated, and its mys- 
teries are unveiled. Great nations kindred to our own, and soon 
to claim their place among imperial powers, are growing up be- 
neath the constellations of the southern hemisphere. Commerce, 
with its steamers on all navigable waters, with its railways stretch- 
ing into every land, with the electric telegraph flashing intelligence 
across the continents and beneath the oceans, has annihilated former 
distances, and is breaking down all old barriers to intercourse and 
mutual influence among nations. The greatest revolution since the 
age of Luther is in rapid progress thfoughout Europe. Only a 
few months ago, a six weeks' war made Germany a Protestant 



11 

empire, and changed despotic Austria into a leading power in the 
march of political reformation ; and still more recently what do 
we see in Spain ! A crisis unparalleled in history is impending 
over the whole world, and the years that remain of this nineteenth 
century will be filled with it. Do I exaggerate the facts ? Do I 
misinterpret the signs of the time ? I speak the words of truth 
and soberness. 

If then we are living to-day on the verge of these great world- 
changes, have we not some responsibility in regard to them ? 
What ought the ministers of Christ, and the churches, to be doing 
at such a time as this ? Especially, what ought they to be doing 
now, in order that the ministry of the Gospel in the great era now 
opening, may be committed to a competent number of men not 
only faithful but able ? In view of the openings into China, and 
of the changes which are already unfolding there, our Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions have distinctly called on the 
churches of their constituency for a thousand missionaries, to be 
sent into that empire within the next ten years. Where are the 
men to answer that demand ? I will not ask where are the thou- 
sand, nor where are half of them. If only a hundred mission- 
aries are to be sent into that empire of four hundred millions of 
souls within the next five years, where are they ? Those who are 
going in 1873 or earlier, ought to be now far advanced in their 
education for the ministry. Where are they ? What are we 
doing to bring them forward ? Surely, if the churches are to do 
their part in preparing and shaping the new world of the twentieth, 
century, there must be a great waking up to the duty of finding, 
out where the young men are whom God is calling to the ministry,, 
and of bringing them forward through such a course of training 
as will qualify them for their work in these swiftly coming years. 
of change, of conflict, of opportunity^ and of decision. 

II. Let not your patience fail, if I now ask you to consider, for 
a few moments, what reasons there are in our country, and in thi& 
age, for endeavors to establish and keep up a system of thorough 
preparation for the ministry. And if I speak especially of intel-^ 
lectual preparation, let me not be understood as implying that any 
possible intellectual preparation — any riches of knowledge and 
learning—any drill and discipline in logic-— any accomplishments 



12 

in the arts of discourse and utterance — anything that the world 
recognizes as scholarship or culture — can qualify a man of what- 
ever genius for the ministry of the Gospel^ without that higher 
and nobler culture which begins in the fear of God, which believes 
in Christ and learns of him, which consecrates the soul with all its 
powers and attainments to the service of Christ, and by which the 
man, renewed within and ever becoming more like Christ, is made 
ready alike for labor and for sacrifice. Far from us be the thought 
of a merely intellectual preparation for the ministry. Far better 
is the most ignorant preacher that can spell out a text from the 
Bible, if he has had a spiritual training like that of John Bunyan 
the tinker, than the most learned theologian who undertakes to 
preach the Gospel without any experience of its renewing power. 
God grant that we may have *' faithful " ministers even of inferior 
*' ability," rather than "able" ministers who are not truly and 
spiritually "faithful," But without forgetting this, let us remem- 
ber what need there is of a well trained ministry for these times. 
Let me ask then, is there not danger that the importance of 
thorough preparation for the ministry will be overlooked in our 
churches ? We are not tied up by authoritative rules, forbidding 
us to ordain a minister, or to recognize and employ a preacher, 
whatever evidence there may be of his having been divinely called, 
unless he has pursued a certain prescribed course of study. There 
is always among us a ready recognition, and admission to our 
pulpits, of any man whom God has evidently called to the min- 
istry and qualified for it — without inquiring whether the candidate 
has « spent four years in college studies and three years in a theo- 
logical seminary. Yet we have a system of preparation for the 
ministry — one which our fathers instituted at the beginning of our 
history, and which has been enlarged and modified to keep pace 
with the progress of the ages ; and under that system the ministry 
of our churches is not inferior, as a whole, to any equal body of 
ministers, here or elsewhere, either in general culture or in the 
knowledge specially pertaining to their work. Heretofore, while 
we have maintained the system, and have been improving it, ex- 
ceptional cases have been recognized and dealt with as exceptions. 
But is there not, of late, a tendency to undervalue the system — to 
let down the standard — to insist on having some shorter course of 
preparation which shall give us a more abundant supply of cheap 



13 

ministers supposed to be good enough for pioneer work and for 
inferior parishes ? Therefore it is that I ask you to consider for a 
moment, what reasons there are, in our country, and in our times, 
for keeping up and enlarging our system of thorough preparation 
for the highest and holiest work ever committed to human hands. 

The times through which we are passing in this country — and 
through which all Christendom is passing — are distinguished by a 
great intellectual conflict. Evangelical Christianity is called to 
contend with powerful enemies for its legitimate dominion over 
human souls. It must maintain itself against the superstitious tra- 
ditions of Romanism on the one hand, and the atheistic tendencies 
of modern philosophy on the other hand. At such a time as this 
— in a country and in an age of the sharpest intellectual conflict — 
are not the churches and their pastors and other ministers sum- 
moned to make every possible provision and arrangement for the 
education of a ministry thoroughly equipped for a spiritual war 
whether with the specious learning and ensnaring sophistries of 
Romanism or with the fatalistic, demoralizing, godless tendencies 
of Naturalism. Within the next thirty years, all the traditions 
which have come down to us from the Reformers in the sixteenth 
century — the forms and definitions of the doctrines which the 
Scriptures teach — nay, the authority of the Scriptures themselves, 
and the manner in which we are to receive and use those holy doc- 
uments of the Christian faith, must be reconsidered and our con- 
ceptions must be clarified and readjusted ; or the truth which the 
Gospel reveals to sinful souls will be obscured, and men will perish 
for want of it. 

Nor is this conflict going on merely in universities, and at such 
like centres of thought and learned discussion. The conflict is 
popularized — it is everywhere. We are carrying on our grand 
home missionary work in the very presence of this conflict. 
Think, then, how grand a work that is. We are organizing 
Christian institutions in broad regions that were yesterday a wil- 
derness — on the Pacific coast — along the railways that are laying 
their track across the continent — ^in the valleys and gorges of the 
Rocky Mountains, and everywhere the same conflict meets us. 
Go where we will to preach the Gospel, the Jesuit is there with his 
beguiling sophisms, and the unbelieving Naturalist is there with 
his denial — outspoken, perhaps — perhaps only suggested — of a 



14 

personal and holy God. Wherever our periodical literature goes 
— and it goes everywhere — wherever our daily or weekly news- 
papers go — the minister of the Gospel finds himself under a 
necessity of maintaining, by intelligent and manly argument, the 
facts of the Gospel against speculative unbelief, and the simplic" 
ity and freedom of the Gospel against superstition and spiritual 
despotism. 

At the same time we are pursuing, and must continue to 
pursue, a proportionate work of foreign missions. If we would 
save our own country — if the American churches are to be vigor- 
ous and thriving in their home activities — these enterprises for the 
propagation of Christian influences and Christian institutions 
through the world, must be not only sustained but enlarged. What 
sort of men, then, must we send forth into all the lands outside of 
Christendom, in the prosecution of that work ? Ask, rather, what 
sort of men we have already sent. What have they done ? 
Largely their work has been a work of scholarship, though of 
scholarship subordinate and incidental to their higher aim. Think 
of their contributions to the science of comparative philology, not 
in rude vocabularies, but in philosophical grammars and lexicons, 
otten of languages never before reduced to any written form. 
Think of their translations of the Scriptures from the original 
Hebrew and Greek, into languages which, by strenuous effort, 
they had made familiarly their own. Think of the many other 
books, translated or original, which they have given to those lan- 
guages — of the schools they have founded — of the pupils they 
have trained. Think of what they have done, and are now 
doing in China. Think of such a work as that of the venerable 
Goodell and his surviving associate, Kiggs, — doing for the Armenian, 
language, and the Armeno-Turkish, what Luther did three hun- 
dred years ago for the German, and Tyndale for our own English 
tongue. Think of the work commenced and continued through 
many laborious years, by Eli Smith, and recently completed by his 
successor Van Dyck — the translation of the Bible into the sacred 
language of Mohammedanism, spoken to-day as a living language 
by sixty millions of people — a translation so exquisite in the classi-- 
cal purity and finish of its style, that it charms the fastidiousness of 
Arab criticism, and challenges comparison with the Koran itself. 
All the scholarship of the nineteenth century can boast of no greater 



15 

achievement than this, which I refer to not simply as showing 
what oar foreign missionaries have done, but rather as showing 
what sort of men are needed for this work of preaching the Gospel 
to every creature. The work is going forward with wonderful 
development of opportunities and of resources ; and, as it pro- 
ceeds, the men sent forth from our country must be, even more 
than heretofore, men of trained and cultivated power ; they must 
be qualified for leadership in great movements ; they must be 
directors, organizers, founders of institutions, teachers in the higher 
departments of instruction, translators and authors of Christian 
books, and must employ, more and more, the agency of native 
evangelists and pastors. It is easy to see that, in the coming 
years, the demand in behalf of the now unevangelized world will 
be not for uneducated men, or men half-educated, but rather for 
men whose native powers, sanctified by grace, have been trained 
by thorough education. 

The question, then, comes home to us — let me say, brethren and 
friends of this congregation, the question comes home to you, — 
Are we not called, at this time, to make new and larger arrange- 
ments for the education of a ministry that shall be " able " as well 
as " faithful." 

Some may be framing in their minds the answer, " What need 
is there of calling on us for aid ? — what need is there of special 
arrangements and endowments for bringing forward a supply of 
educated ministers? — why will not the demand create the supply ? " 
I will tell you why. 

The work of preaching the Gospel, whether as a missionary or 
as a pastor, is not a remunerative employment. We cannot safely 
apply the maxims of the market, or of political economy, to a 
problem like this. No young man devotes himself to the ministry 
in the expectation that the money which his education will cost, 
and the time and labor which he must expend in it, will be profi- 
tably invested — profitably to himself in the commercial meaning 
of the word. Not only would he be disappointed if he should 
act on such an expectation, but who would want him for a minister 
if the expectation of making money by the ministry were among 
his motives ? No ; the problem of providing a faithful and able 
ministry of the Gospel for our country and for the world, is a 
problem on which the commercial doctrine of a fixed relation 



16 

between demand and supply in the market, can shed no light ; for 
the demand in this case addresses itself to motives and sentiments 
altogether different from those on which the whole science of 
wealth and trade, with all its certainties, is built. The call which 
addresses itself to young men, is not, " Behold these opening ave- 
nues to wealth, to ease, to the world's honors." It is the voice of 
God, sounding in his sanctuary, *' AVhom shall I send, and who 
will go for us ?" It is the voice of Christ, saying, as he said of 
old, to the sons of Andrew, and to the sons of Zebedee, and to 
Matthew " at the receipt of custom," " Follow me — forsake all 
and follow me — go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
every creature, and lo ! I am with you always." It is the voice 
of faith, " Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be 
fed." The demand on the churches is, " Find out the young men 
whom the Lord hath need of — whom the Holy Ghost is quicken- 
ing and calling — make it possible for them to do the great work 
to which God calls them — encourage their diffidence — take them 
by the hand, and put them forward after a godly sort." 

The truth is that the ministry of the Gospel always has been, 
and in the nature of the case, always must be recruited largely 
from the families of what are called the humbler classes in society. 
Provision must be made for their support in part, through the 
whole course of their preparation for a work which will never 
repay them, save in spiritual blessings, for the cost and toil of 
preparation. The question, then, is, first of all, Will the living 
Christianity of our country do this ? Will those men in our 
churches, to whom God has given large means and large hearts, 
lay the necessary foundations for educating thoroughly the pastors 
and the missionaries demanded by the exigencies of our age, and 
by the prospective need of Christ's great work ? Will they pro- 
vide that the young men whom God calls, and who answer to his 
call, shall have not only theological instruction, but shelter and 
home, and daily food if they cannot procure it for themselves, 
while making preparation for a work so unattractive save to heroic 
souls kindling with love to Christ, and with the spirit of self- 
sacrifice ? 

Next, the question is, Will the churches, guided by their pas- 
tors, find out the young men whom God is calling, and put them 
on the way to the ministry ? Many a young man there is who 



17 

might be greatly useful in the work of the Gospel, at home or 
abroad, but who knows not that the Lord hath need of him. His 
modesty, perhaps, and too diffident estimate of what is in him — 
perhaps his lack of opportunity — perhaps his poverty and the 
lowliness of his condition — have kept him from knowing his own 
capabilities. But ought not his pastor to know him ? Ought not 
some brother in the church to know him ? Might not that pastor 
or that Christian brother be the organ of a Divine call to him ? 
Ought not the church to take him by the hand and say, ''Leave 
the farm — the workshop — the counting-house — leave whatever 
may seem to be your secular calling, and begin to prepare yourself 
for the ministry of Christ." Ought not the churc h to tell him, 
'^ We will help you to bear your burthen ; we will help you if 
you need help, at school and at college ; if you are willing to 
struggle for yourself, we will see that you are neither hungry nor 
cold, nor yet ragged." The question is, Will the churches, guided 
by their pastors, do this — or anything like it ? Are they doing it ? 

There is another form of the question. Will Christian parents 
in our churches consecrate their sons to Christ, in the prayer and 
hope that God will make them ministers of his word ? The sec- 
ular activities of our country are such — there are so many paths 
leading to wealth, to social position, and to enviable distinction of 
one kind and another — that many a parent — yes, many a parent of 
whom better things might be expected — shrinks from the thought 
of giving up his son to the humble and seemingly ill-requited 
work of ministering in the Gospel of Christ. It is not the rich 
only whose minds are infected with such a feeling. Even a poor 
man may say to himself, '' This bright boy of mine, if I can help 
him to a good education, may be distinguished at the bar ; his 
income may be not thousands of dollars but tens of thousands ; 
the highest judicial or political offices may be within his reach. If 
I put him in the way of becoming a merchant or business man, I 
may live to see him a great capitalist, one of the merchant princes, 
doing good on the widest scale by his munificence. But if he 
becomes a minister of the Gospel, the chances are a thousand to 
one that there will be for him only a ' shady-side ' experience. 
I must dissuade him from such a course. Let my son be a rich 
man, and let somebody else's son endure hardness in the ministry 



18 

of the Gospel." Am I wrong in suggesting that this is the way in 
which too many parents, professedly Christian, think and feel 
about their children ? Surely there are few ministers of Christ in 
this assembly, whose tenderest memories do not prompt them to 
respond, " It was not so with my father," — or, at least, " It was 
not so with my mother." Surely, there are few who will not 
testify, ^* There were prayers over my cradle — lessons of duty and 
of aspiration were breathed into my mind in early childhood — by 
which I was consecrated to this ministry." Now the question 'is. 
Will Christian parents in our churches, to-day and henceforward, 
do as those parents did ? Have you who are the father of a hopeful 
son, consecrated that son to Christ for the ministry of his Gospel ? 
Has it been your prayer — dare you pray that God will take him 
and use him in a work which offers so little of wealth or of worldly 
honor ? Does he know that you are praying and hoping to see 
him ^' stand up for Jesus " in the pulpit ? Have you ever told 
him that, if it is in his heart to obtain such an -^^ducation as will 
qualify him with the needful ability for the ministry, you are ready 
to relinquish your worldly aspirations, and to help him forward by 
every sacrifice in your power ? You who are a mother, is it your 
daily prayer for your darling boy, that God may call him to be a 
minister of the Gospel ? Fathers and mothers ! the great majority 
of those who are now serving the churches, whether as pastors or 
as evangelists, at home or abroad, are in that work because their 
parents gave them to it in faith and pr-^yer, and let me say in their 
name, *' If the spirit which consecrated us to this ministry when 
we were children, is dying out, then the work which these churches 
are required to do for our country and for the world, will not be 
done." 

The question presents itself in yet another form. Can the 
young men be found who will give themselves to the work ? In 
this form the question comes to all young men of competent gifts, 
whose hearts God has quickened by his grace, and who are asking, 
in reference to the future of their lives, '* Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do ?" But especially does it come to young men who 
are already privileged with opportunities and means of culture, 
and are looking forward to a life of intellectual activity. Perhaps 
I speak in the hearing of some such. Let me say to them. You 



\ 



19 

must not dismiss this subject from your thoughts without consider- 
ing the distinct and loud appeal which it makes to you. If we 
call on the churches to give their best young men to the high but 
self-denying employment of preaching the Gospel in all lands, and 
to provide the endowments and foundations on which young men 
may be fitly trained for that employment, how much more may we, 
in God's name, call on you to give yourselves ? Where shall we 
find the young men upon whom Paul, if he were here, would lay 
his consecrating hand, as he laid it upon Timothy ? Where shall 
we, who have borne the heat and burthen of our day, find men to 
take our places in the grand succession from Christ's Apostles ? 

Some young men, with gifts that might be useful in this minis- 
try, are looking for the avenues to wealth — some for the avenues 
to secular distinction or to fame. I say to them, and to all. Friends, 
there is for you, if you will hear God's call, an avenue to some- 
thing better — better than wealth — better than all the honors which 
this world can offer. Would you not rather be Paul than Felix, 
or Festus, or Nero ? Would you not rather be Timothy than the 
most fortunate and successful of the Epicureans or Stoics to whom 
Paul seemed only a babbler ? Would you not rather be the 
humble and faithful village pastor, than the successful village 
lawyer ? Would you not rather be found among them who have 
turned many to righteousness, and who shall shine as the bright- 
ness of the firmament forever, than among them whom the world 
calls happy ? 

Here, then, is the conclusion which I would leave distinctly 
impressed on every mind. There is a view in which those words 
of " Paul the aged " to his " son Timothy " are his words — and 
God's — to us ministers of the Gospel and hearers of the Gospel at 
this time. From the cell in which the Apostle was waiting for the 
executioner, his voice comes sounding through the centuries to us 
— nay rather from the throne of Him to whom all power is given 
in heaven and in earth, a more commanding voice comes down to 
us, '* The things which ye have heard of me — the same commit 
ye to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." 



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